“. . . I met Hayter one day this week at Lord Essex’s, and asked him to tell me anything new about the little Queen. He said she was quite as amiable and kind and lively as ever. He has got on a good way with the State picture he is making of her. She said to him the other day:—‘I am very curious to know how you mean to place my hands. Just take them and place them as you intend in the picture.’ A very delicate commission to execute, as Hayter observed; but he did so; and then the Queen turned to Lady Mulgrave and said:—‘I have often thought, if I had to paint a Queen, how I would place her hands; and, curiously enough, this is the very position I had hit on.””
